Smugglers used Windsor as a narcotics pipeline

WINDSOR, Ont. Police have busted up a well-organized international narcotics ring — that hid drugs in watermelon shipments and hollowed out pineapples — and used Windsor as a smuggling pipeline.

Investigators say the smuggling scheme also has ties to Eastern Canada, the U.S., Jamaica, Guyana and Costa Rica.

Police have arrested six people and issued warrants for others after the four-month investigation.

“Drug dealers will stop at nothing to get their contraband into this country,” said Supt. Rick Penney, the RCMP Drug Enforcement Commander for the Greater Toronto Area. “It is through this type of inter-agency co-operation that we can thoroughly investigate and dismantle organized criminal groups.”

Officers with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and various RCMP units from Toronto, New Brunswick and Windsor were all involved in the investigation, along with numerous government agencies from Canada and abroad.

The probe began when CBSA officers in New Brunswick seized a marine container concealing cocaine. The coke was hidden inside hollowed out pineapples. Officers seized 19 kilograms of cocaine that was stuffed in 80 pineapples scattered throughout the shipment.

Officers linked the container to a Toronto area address.

Over the following four months, the RCMP identified further illegal drug shipments and the people involved in this “criminal enterprise.”

Investigators handed off some information to CBSA officers at the Windsor port of entry. The officers here intercepted two trucks, which each contained 115 kilograms of marijuana. Those drugs had been hidden in the packaging surrounding shipments of watermelons.

“Our officers are Canada’s first line of defence in seizing illegal drugs,” said Goran Vragovic, Regional Director General for the CBSA Toronto region. “The result of this investigation demonstrates the value of co-operation with our enforcement partners.”

The RCMP said they later learned the group had “co-conspirators” in Jamaica, Guyana, Costa Rica and the US.

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